I’m curious if the researchers intend to clone elephants before attempting mammoths. Different species pose their own challenges … have elephants been cloned before?

Humanity shows no signs of slowing it’s growth. Which implies that more species will go extinct in the near future.

Cloning technology has developed to the point where we might be able to un-extinct some of these species.

Exploration into space may one day yield new habitats that earth flora and fauna can thrive in. If that happens, and we have the ability to restore the species we destroyed, how can one argue that it wouldn’t be good to rebuild the rich and vibrant biodiversity that we are losing here?
The cloning of this mammoth is a step in proving technology that can preserve the evolutionary history of our universe for all time. Perfection of cloning technology isn’t about solving the problem of ‘too few mammoths’ at the zoo, it’s about creating options to preserve biodiversity.

They came by kyak, ikyak, canoe, and when they entered onto the new shore there were great beasts in greater abundance.

And the beasts had no knowledge of men.

The beasts ran from the saber toothed cat, but not from man. For they had never seen a man. And man, with a knife, a spear, a club, a simple stone, killed and ate. And whenever the men grew hungry, they killed and ate and fed themselves very well .

They spend upon the face of the Americas at a great rate, covered the land with men and ate what they killed. And killed them all the animals that had no fear of man. Even the great cats were left with nothing to eat and so they too died.

The ‘conundrums’ of the population explosion, the demise of the large herbivores and carnivores is not really so difficult to imagine. The Mammoth and the Sloth simply did not run away. After all, how could so small and naked a thing threaten them.

The fossil record supports this amply.

Dean